A Better Brain with Age (Nine Steps to a Sharper You)

"This book should be required reading for everyone over the age of 50. A Better Brain with Age feels like a loving conversation with trusted friends who just happen to be brilliant and compassionate neurologists.”—Lisa Genova, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice and Remember

Unlike every other organ in the body, the brain can grow stronger with age and experience—and these nine surprisingly simple, science-based steps to enhance and protect brain function.

Renowned neurologists Dean and Ayesha Sherzai—the beloved husband-and-wife team known as “the Brain Docs”—have spent their careers at the cutting edge of brain science, and their findings are clear: cognitive decline, memory loss, Alzheimer’s, and dementia are not inevitable. As we age, the brain becomes more interconnected, more resilient, and better able to forge deep meaning from experience.

When we embrace this truth, we ignite the potential to enhance our cognitive vitality at any age. Beyond avoiding the frustrations of short-term memory loss and the specter of more serious diseases, we can become sharper, strengthen our emotional stability, deepen our relationships, and discover new passions each and every year.

Drawing on comprehensive research and pioneering clinical work with over 30,000 patients, in A Better Brain with Age the Sherzais lay out a nine-step roadmap for lifelong brain health and vitality. These steps compound together, each one strengthening the others, until the mind doesn’t just resist decline, but actively grows:

1. Eat the foods that protect and build your neurons, linked in landmark research to a 53 percent lower rate of Alzheimer’s disease.
2. Protect the deep sleep that drives your brain’s overnight clearing of metabolic waste and locks in long-term memory.
3. Get moving every day to builds new neurons and strengthen the connections between them.
4. Use emotional regulation techniques to blunt the effect of chronic stress on the hippocampus, your brain’s memory center.
5. Hone your attention with exercises that strengthen the networks behind focus and mental clarity.
6. Train your memory with the techniques that memory athletes rely on and build deep knowledge that genuinely improves with age.
7. Have fun with creative pursuits that spark novel cognitive pathways and encourage mental flexibility.
8. Harness the power of relationships to activate the brain’s reward center, fueling fulfillment and connection.
9. Reflect and find meaning to connect what you value to what you do each day, the habit most consistently linked to lower dementia risk.

These clinically grounded solutions are so simple you'll stick with them, and so effective they will pay off. A Better Brain with Age closes with a three-month transformative plan that turns all of it into daily practice, one week at a time. The result is a blueprint for cognitive health, vitality, and a life you will love.

"In a world where optimizing health and well-being has never been more important, Dean and Ayesha Sherzai offer a groundbreaking guide rooted in rigorous science and practical wisdom. . . . A must-read for anyone committed to unlocking the full potential of their mind and living a vibrant, purposeful life.”—Rich Roll, ultra-endurance athlete, podcaster, and New York Times bestselling author of Finding Ultra and co-author of The Plantpower Way